Georgia Death Records

Georgia attempted to require registration of births, marriages, and deaths on a county level in 1875, but the law was repealed in 1876. Some vital records for fourteen Georgia counties for 1875 have been microfilmed and are available at the Georgia Department of Archives and History (see Archives, Libraries, and Societies). In 1919 Georgia law required the registration of all births and deaths in the state. As in many other states, Georgia’s county governments were slow to respond to the new law and most did not comply until 1928. See Georgia Historical Records Survey, Guide to Public Vital Statistics in Georgia (Atlanta, Ga.: the author, 1941) for the records kept by individual counties. Eichholz, Alice, ed. Ancestry’s Red Book, American State, County, and Town Sources. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, Inc., 1992.

A few major cities required death registration early:

The links in this table are informational only. They do not provide actual data.
Deaths by their nature are easily found records. While public notices are published in local newspapers, you may also extract death records online from the SSDI, obituaries, bible, church and cemetery transcriptions. We suggest using each of the following resources to further your death record research:

Included in the microfilmed holdings of GDAH are pre-1919 death records for Chatham, Greene, and Meriwether counties and the City of Gainesville.
County records (particularly wills and other estate records) are a useful substitute for death records. Pre-1900 county records for the majority of Georgia counties are available at the Archives.
There is one large source for death records online other then the free SSDI link above. These are death records housed by Ancestry, the following provides a description and link for you if you wish to further investigate this paid database:

  • Georgia Deaths, 1919-98 This database is an index of more than 2.7 million deaths recorded by the state of Georgia from 1919 to 1998. Georgia’s registration of births and deaths on the state level began in 1919. The index includes the name of the deceased, the volume of the certificate number, the death date, the race of the deceased, the deceased’s gender, the county of death, the death certificate number, the date the certificate was filed, and the deceased’s age. Source Information: State of Georgia. Indexes of Vital Records for Georgia: Deaths, 1919-98. Georgia: Georgia Health Department, Office of Vital Records, 1998.

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Back to: Georgia Genealogy

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